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excavated, the town would be just as well known as we now know the Roman period of Herculaneum and Pompeji” . Holbcrg’s original and merry plays, such as “Jeppe on the Hiil” and “Erasmus Montanus” are still the mainstay of the National Theatre and hence their farne spread, in bygone days, to other European stages, especially those of Germany. More playwrights appeared in Denmark, and from foreign countries, mostly from France, came a repertoire that gave Danish actors the apportunity of airing their wit and talents and in which the language might soar to pathos. Moliére and Scribe were the f avorites of the Danes for a very long time, and, after her visit in 1880 — when Sarah Bernard presented a marble relief of the dead Ophelia to the foyer — the Royal Theatre became almost an echo of “Theatre Franfais” and later on both Coquelin ainé and Féraudy acted here. Among English plays Sheridan’s “The School for Scandal” was on the repertoire as early as the eighteenth century and for generations this witty comedy has been one of the finest performances upon the stage of the Royal Theatre. In 1813 William Shakespeare was introduced with “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” and that was the begin­ ning of a long series of performances of the more im- portant works of the great Briton. It is still a problem whether Shakespeare himself was in Denmark as a member of an English troupe that acted before King Frederik the Second at Kronborg, near Elsinore. Be that as it may, the faet remains that Shakespeare’s work 21